I have never smoked but I believe smoking can be a good thing. Since smoking has been banned in buildings, the smokers in a company congregate in certain smoking zones – When you walk past these groups I notice two things – it’s a disparate group (i.e. they come form all parts of an organization) and 2) they are all talking together – it seems the commonality of purpose has united this group that encourages co-operation and spread of ideas across the organization when they return to their desks.

Creativity is often stimulated by informal collision of people from different perspective. Surely this is exactly what is happening when this group comes together?

So lets not completely ban cigarette smoking for those who wish to smoke. For me the bigger question is how do we create in our organization more informal conversation points where a randomized variety of people inside the company can bump into each other and start talking?